The Ancestor's Tale

The Ancestor's Tale is a pilgrimage back through time - a journey on which we meet up with fellow pilgrims as we and they converge on our common ancestors. Chimpanzees join us at about six million years in the past, gorillas at seven million years, orangutans at 14 million years, as we stride on together, a growing band. The journey provides the setting for a collection of some 40 tales.

This audio version is a very much abridged version. It is frustrating when listening to the many parts and tales that are mentioned by title, but left out of this version. Because, Richard Dawkins is always a good listen. Occasionally he goes onto my nerves with his heightened language and strange poems added in weightfull speech. However, the story he has to tell is engaging, the perspective of a pilgrimage back through time, meeting common ancestors we have with all life on Earth is a unique one. Each and every one of the individual tales are a fascinating read. I was most intrigued by the discussion about the advantages and disadvantages of sexual reproduction - unbelievable that such a basic property of life is not understood - what a great problem to work on.
Did I mention that it is too bad that this book is abridged?

11-22-63: A Novel

On November 22, 1963, three shots rang out in Dallas, President Kennedy died, and the world changed. What if you could change it back? In this brilliantly conceived tour de force, Stephen King - who has absorbed the social, political, and popular culture of his generation more imaginatively and thoroughly than any other writer - takes listeners on an incredible journey into the past and the possibility of altering it.

This book has a great background idea and I found it executed pretty well. I love the writing by Stephen King in general, and this book definitely held up.

My one quibble is some of the personalized voices by Craig Wasson. Other reviewers have commented on it. I actually went along with most of the characters. But I was taken aback with the voice of Sadie. Mr. Wasson makes her sound weak and pathetic, which for me caused the relation between Jake and her to never become quite believable. I am sure that in the book itself this is OK, but the voice unfortunately killed that important part for me. Still, a great ride. I loved the great descriptions on how life in the late 50th might have been like, I liked thinking about how history might have been different if an important watershed moment would go the other way, and I liked King's treatment of the side effects of time travel.

Pushing Ice

2057. Humanity has raised exploiting the solar system to an art form. Bella Lind and the crew of her nuclear-powered ship, the Rockhopper, push ice. They mine comets. And they're good at it. The Rockhopper is nearing the end of its current mission cycle, and everyone is desperate for some much-needed R & R, when startling news arrives from Saturn: Janus, one of Saturn's ice moons, has inexplicably left its natural orbit and is now heading out of the solar system at high speed.

This was my first Alastair Reynolds book, and it will surely be the last. The basic idea, a moon pulling away from the solar system and the crew of a ship stuck on it and being pulled into interstellar space had the smell of potential, and it made me get the book. However, it is a mystery how it got so positive reviews. John Lee is a good reader, that was alright. But the story was flat, the characters without any real depth, many parts of the story without connecting relevance, the contrast between the two main characters too black and white. The prologue/epilogue seems completely out of place, without any function. To summarize, I cannot recommend this book at all.

Since Darwin's day, we've been told that sexual monogamy comes naturally to our species. Mainstream science - as well as religious and cultural institutions - has maintained that men and women evolved in families in which a man's possessions and protection were exchanged for a woman's fertility and fidelity. But this narrative is collapsing....

I am surprised by the overly positive reviews for this book. The basic idea presented is interesting alright (but not that new), and it probably rings with the feeling of being trapped in current societies sexual rules and restrictions. But the book is very repetitive and focuses too much on picking a fight with established theories of human sexuality instead of presenting arguments for the "new" theory. I guess this would have been good as a 2 hour lecture, there is not enough substance for a 10 hour book. I stopped half way through, to turn to a better use of my time.

Indignation

It is 1951 in America, the second year of the Korean War. Marcus Messner of Newark, New Jersey, is beginning his sophomore year at the pastoral, conservative Winesburg College in Ohio. Why is he here? Because his father, a hard-working neighborhood butcher, seems to have gone mad.

Pandora's Star

Britain's bestselling SF writer returns to outer space.In AD 2329, humanity has colonised over four hundred planets, all of them interlinked by wormholes. With Earth at its centre, the Intersolar Commonwealth now occupies a sphere of space approximately four hundred light years across.When an astronomer on the outermost world of Gralmond, observes a star 2000 light years distant - and then a neighbouring one - vanish, it is time for the Commonwealth to discover what happened to them.

Peter F. Hamilton invents a really interesting Universe, one that is engaging and full of interesting stuff. But I feel that the book could have been soo much better by cutting it down to maybe 1/3 of its length. The writing spreads the interesting content over way too many pages. You have to work through hours of cheep TV-style soap about rather predictable characters before you are rewarded with another interesting snipped that drives the story along. While I in the end enjoyed diving into this Universe, I am not going to invest the same amount of time to read through the sequel.

I think I need to check out if there is a short story collection by this author....

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Seconds before the Earth is demolished to make way for a galactic freeway, Arthur Dent is plucked off the planet by his friend Ford Prefect, a researcher for the revised edition of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy who, for the last 15 years, has been posing as an out-of-work actor.

The Modern Scholar: From Here to Infinity: An Exploration of Science Fiction Literature

The best science fiction asks essential questions: What does it mean to be human? Are we alone in the universe, and what does it mean if we're not? Esteemed professor Michael D. C. Drout traces the history of science fiction in this series of stimulating lectures. From Mary Shelley's Frankenstein to today's cutting- edge authors, Drout offers a compelling analysis of the genre, including a look at the golden age of science fiction, New Wave writers, and contemporary trends in the field.

I was somewhat disappointed by this book. While it gives a classification of part of SF literature and turns the reader on to a number of good books, I found it lacking in depth. More often than not the lecture does not go much beyond summarizing the content of a number of books, with little true analysis. The analysis is there is poorly structured and repetitive. Also, the course is really extremely America-centric. While the author is open about this fact and justified it by the fact that much SF originates in America, I still find it unfortunate. Yes, Jules Verne is discussed and Stanislaw Lem get mentioned, but that is about it. The biggest positive effect of this course was turning me on to Greg Egan, an author I had not yet read and now really like.

Shadow Divers: Adventure of Two Americans Who Risked Everything to Solve One of the Last Mysteries of WWII

For John Chatterton and Richie Kohler, deep wreck diving was more than a sport. Testing themselves against treacherous currents, braving depths that induced hallucinatory effects, they pushed themselves to their limits and beyond, brushing against death more than once in the rusting hulks of sunken ships.

The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many Are Smarter Than the Few

In this endlessly fascinating book, New Yorker columnist James Surowiecki explores a deceptively simple idea that has profound implications: large groups of people are smarter than an elite few, no matter how brilliant. Groups are better at solving problems, fostering innovation, coming to wise decisions, even predicting the future.

Alex & Me

On September 6, 2007, an African Grey parrot named Alex died prematurely at age 31. His last words to his owner, Irene Pepperberg, were "You be good. I love you." What would normally be a quiet, very private event was, in Alex's case, headline news. Over the 30 years they had worked together, Alex and Irene had become famous - two pioneers who opened an unprecedented window into the hidden yet vast world of animal minds.

I had no idea how far cognition can go in the brain of a bird, and that really kept me interested in the book throughout the read. Julia Gibson as reader was first a bit annoying, but I got used to it and think that her voice actually reflects what the author is like. A lot of personal history of Ms. Pepperberg is also covered in the book. While some reviewers disliked that fact, I did find it interesting as well. It does show how difficult it can be to drive into new scientific directions without having the support of the community initially. It also shows that perseverance can get you there non-the-less. The subject of bird intelligence, in brains that are only distantly related to mammal brains, has kept me thinking for weeks after I listened to the book. Maybe the intelligence attested to the Velociraptors in Jurassic Park is not impossible after all?

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